LONDON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today he plans to offer money and jobs to insurgents to draw them back to civilian life and away from their Taliban masters.

Karzai told the BBC the major powers, including the United States, would fund the scheme to tempt Taliban fighters to lay their weapons aside and head home to their communities. “Those that we approach to return will be provided with the abilities to work, to find jobs, to have protection, to resettle in their own communities,” he said.

“We know as the Afghan people we must have peace at any cost,” he added. Hardline Taliban supporters, who were members of Al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups, would not be accepted, the president stressed. The Taliban gives its volunteers higher salaries than the Afghan government can afford to pay its forces, and the president said his project would have international backing to provide the necessary funds.

The United States and Britain would announce at a major conference on Afghanistan in London next week that they had decided to back his plan, the president said, adding Japan would also offer financial backing. Despite initial reluctance to back the project, Karzai said the United States had now come round to the idea and would offer support.

Asked about American support for the scheme, he said: “We have been talking about this issue of reconciliation for a long time. Now they actually are backing it.” He has faced severe criticism from Western powers over August’s fraud-tainted elections and his weak leadership, but said his position could be strengthened by increased resources. “My presidency is weak in regard to the means of power, which means money, which means equipment, which means manpower, which means capacity,” said Karzai.

The president defended his administration, however, as one of the most legitimate that had ruled Afghanistan for some years. “Where legitimacy is concerned, for the past eight years Afghanistan has had perhaps the most legitimate of its governments ever seen,” Karzai said.

He also sounded an optimistic note about the war-ravaged country’s future, predicting that in five years Afghanistan could be in control of its own security and the fight against corruption and drugs. And Karzai still sounded angry about stinging criticism from the United States and Britain about the way the presidential election was run, which he insisted was an effort by the West to undermine him.

“Unfortunately our election was very seriously mistreated by our Western allies,” he said. But despite this bitter note, the president said he trusted the Western powers “because we are in a relationship together.” The Afghanistan conference in London on January 28 will see the international community try to thrash out conditions and set a broad timeline for transferring power to Afghan forces.

Chemical used for bombs banned

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has banned

the sale and possession of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which is used by Islamist insurgents to make deadly homemade bombs, a statement said on Friday. “Import, production, possession, use, purchase and sale of ammonium nitrate fertiliser is banned,” the president’s decree said.

The substance is intended

for agricultural use and widely available, but it is a key ingredient in improvised explosive

devices, the Taliban weapon

of choice in the worsening

insurgency.

“Based on investigations

by security forces, terrorists widely use the fertiliser in

making explosives. To avoid such terrorist actions any

use of this substance will (result in) judicial prosecution,” the statement adds.

The decree said anyone in possession of the fertiliser

must hand it over to branches of the Ministry of Agriculture within one month.